PRESS RELEASE

Liverpool Biennial 2021 in the Classroom, at Home and in the Community

The 11th edition of Liverpool Biennial, The Stomach and the Port, will lead with an integrated free Learning Programme for families, schools and the wider community to enjoy in the classroom and at home.

Opening on 20 March as part of the first ‘outside’ chapter of the 2021 Biennial, the Learning Programme will be hosted on the new Biennial Online Portal (liverpoolbiennial2021.com), a dedicated platform featuring each of the Biennial’s artists and a dynamic programme of public events, alongside the new series of outdoor sculpture, sonic and digital commissions. To align with government guidelines, the second ‘inside’ chapter will launch the full festival of exhibitions hosted by key venues throughout Liverpool in late Spring.

Through a vibrant selection of online and physical resources, including new participatory artworks commissioned from international artists, families and young people can explore the deeper meaning behind each entry point. Highlights include interactive body percussion workshops and performances; live-in-the-studio artist-led events for teenagers; a pack of things to do, make, learn and read for young children; and a set of online curriculum-based resources for teachers and educators which bring the Biennial into the classroom.

With a particular focus on the exploration of kinship – one of the three entry points of the Biennial alongside, Stomach and Porosity - the programme draws inspiration from the extended familial connections that underpin our community. Bespoke activities have been devised with Liverpool charity Kinship Carers using the Feldenkrais Method of exercise, and with not-for-profit community arts company Rule of Threes in Sefton, creating a pack of recipes, local produce and a food-focused Zine.

The Learning Programme Liverpool Biennial has commissioned KeKeÇa Body Percussion Ensemble to deliver a series of interactive tutorials and performances at key moments throughout the Biennial. Acknowledging the body as a place of lived experience, audiences will be encouraged to participate using their own bodies as percussive and musical instruments. Starting on 20 March, a series of pre-recorded bitesize videos will be hosted on the Biennial Online Portal each week. Live streamed workshops will initially run through a network of schools in Liverpool in the lead up to KeKeÇa Camp at half term (31 May to 4 June), where daily sessions will be released online. This will culminate in a live large-scale, virtual performance with schools in the second half of the summer term. As the Biennial moves towards its final chapter, KeKeÇa will open up their workshops to everyone, empowering intergenerational participants to connect and collaborate.

For up-and-coming young creatives, students aged 14 to 19 will have a unique opportunity to go live-in-the-studio with Liverpool Biennial’s artists, including Teresa Solar (24 March) and Erick Beltrán (21 April), amongst others. Each artist-led digital workshop will provide an intimate setting to get creative and ask questions about the Biennial’s artists’ individual practices. In addition, 3 entry point-themed workshops will focus on the Stomach, Porosity and Kinship. These sessions will investigate the curatorial approach to The Stomach and the Port, working in collaboration with organisations that support local authority areas, as well as LGBT+, refugees and asylum-seeking communities.

Packed with things to do, make, learn and read, the illustrated kinship activity pack for families with primary age children, introduces the idea of kinship - how we are connected to each other, our community, nature and technology. From a wild plant word search to a weather report, to learning about skeletons through yoga, the pack will encourage young people to investigate their connections with the wider world, guiding them to become art critics, makers and storytellers through the activities they can do. The pack will be available to download.

A set of online curriculum-based resources for teachers and educators will bring the Biennial into the classroom. Featuring extensive lesson plans that use contemporary creative practices to support the delivery of the national curriculum, a new resource will be uploaded each week for subjects ranging from KS1 to KS4 to support the planning and delivery of teaching in school, at home or other educational settings. The cross-curriculum approach weaves the practices and works of the Biennial artists into teaching: subjects such as colonial forces and migration will supplement history and geography lessons, while the human relationship with nature on a cellular level can inform science lessons.

Working with Liverpool’s Kinship Carers, a charity that supports kinship families in the city, artist Yael Davids will lead a private series of weekly practices in the Feldenkrais Method exercise. As a practice that invites us to slow down, notice and bring awareness to our bodies, these closed sessions provide care for those who give care to others. Each demonstration will follow the unfolding of The Birds of America, a 19th century book containing life-size illustrations of birds nearing extinction by American naturalist and painter John James Audubon housed in Liverpool’s Central library. The groups will demonstrate patterns of movement in sequences inspired by the imagery of Audubon’s birds, focusing on their anatomy and depicted positioning on the page. Referencing the diasporic nature of birds, David’s work examines themes of community, locality and rootedness, alongside migration and diaspora. The events relate to her work Wingspan of the Captive (2021), that will go on display at the Central Library later in the Spring.

Land artist Jorgge Menna Barreto will partner up with Rule of Threes to present the Kinship Days project ‘Cultivating Common Ground’ in collaboration with the network of Merseyside based growers, producers and distributors of produce and plants. Interested in agroforestry, site-specificity, plant-based food and multispecies assemblages, Barreto considers our digestive system as a sculptural tool that has the ability to shape our environment. Originally intended as a picnic, the pandemic has led Barreto to adapt his project to create a pack filled with recipes, resources, local produce, and a Zine. Presenting a local portrait of food and agricultural practices from the grassroot organisations in the region, the Zine will map the places of growth, supply and support for communities around food, as well as including conversations with local farmers and artists, and much more. This shift in approach speaks to important issues around food, from the free school meal crisis to how we can all be producers in the world, as further referenced by Barreto’s mural Mauvais Alphabet (2021) on the side of Bluecoat.

Manuela Moscoso, Curator of Liverpool Biennial 2021, said: “We are grateful to our artists and local partners for taking part in this exciting programme, which following the lockdown and with the blossoming of Spring aims to reawaken our senses and give audiences the feeling of being present, and part of something. From learning with the body through movement and exercise, to expanding the potential of our ideas and dreams, the artists from The Stomach and the Port have set out to create new connections, reinvigorating the importance of kinship in society. Education is at the heart of Liverpool Biennial, a part of everything we do. Free to take part in, the Learning Programme creates a bridge, distilling the Biennial’s rich plethora of stories and information to be absorbed through individual experiences close to your community, at home or in school.”

To receive weekly updates about the Learning Programme and for first access to booking an event, sign up to the Family and Schools newsletter. Alternatively, for more information and to make an online booking visit liverpoolbiennial2021.com from 20 March onwards.

The Stomach and the Port (20 March to 6 June) is curated by Manuela Moscoso and will showcase the work of 50 leading, and emerging, artists and collectives from 30 countries around the world, including 47 new commissions. Exploring concepts of the body, Liverpool Biennial draws on non-Western thinking where the body is seen as fluid, being continuously shaped by, and actively shaping its environment. The port city of Liverpool, and its maritime history as a point of global contact and circulation, provides the perfect ecosystem for this Biennial to imagine different forms of being human and explore what bodies have the potential to be.

The artists’ practices will be gathered under 3 entry points – Stomach, Porosity and Kinship – to present different ways of thinking about and linking the artworks across the Biennial. The stomach is the bodily organ through which we engage with and digest the world; porosity is the ability of the skin to absorb or allow things to pass through; and kinship revisits the bonds and relationships which connect us to our families, the community and beyond, to include the wider world of nature and technology.

Ends Liverpool Biennial 2021: The Stomach and the Port takes place 20 March – 6 June 2021 www.biennial.com

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Susie Gault, Press and PR Advisor, Liverpool Biennial, [email protected] Lucinda Riding, Scott & Co: [email protected] Catharine Braithwaite: [email protected]

About Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the oldest and largest festival of contemporary visual art in the UK. Since its inception in 1998, the Biennial has become renowned in the international contemporary art world, bringing together a wide array of international voices and artistic practices. Taking place every two years, Liverpool Biennial activates public institutions, historical sites and extraordinary locations across Liverpool, ensuring major commissions in the public realm. Pioneering an innovative approach underpinned by a year-round programme of research, education, residencies, projects and commissions, each biennial edition introduces renewed thinking and scale of production. Having commissioned over 340 new artworks and presented work by over 480 celebrated artists from around the world, the Biennial is built on a longstanding commitment to connecting international artist with local practitioners, communities and the general public. Liverpool Biennial is supported by Arts Council England, Liverpool City Council and founding supporter James Moores. A full list of supporters and partners for the 11th edition is located at the end of this press release. For more information visit: www.biennial.com.

About Arts Council England Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. We invest public money from Government and The National Lottery to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. For more information visit: www.artscouncil.org.uk.

Following the Covid-19 crisis, the Arts Council developed a £160 million Emergency Response Package, with nearly 90% coming from the National Lottery, for organisations and individuals needing support. We are also one of the bodies administering the Government’s unprecedented £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Funds. Find out more at www.artscouncil.org.uk/covid19.

About Liverpool City Council Liverpool City Council is one of the largest local authorities in the UK serving a population of 491,500. Culture Liverpool is the city council department which aims to maintain the city’s reputation as a cultural and sporting destination, positioning Liverpool as the most exciting place in the UK in which to live, visit, work, study and invest. Through the production and delivery of events, and championing creativity via funded projects across Liverpool City Region, Culture Liverpool pushes boundaries and inspires audiences, ensuring everyone has access to arts and culture. For more information, visit www.cultureliverpool.co.uk.

Principal Funders

Founding Supporter James Moores

Delivery Partners

Whitney Museum of American Art

Project Partners Sponsors

Trusts and Foundations

Estate of Fanchon Fröhlich

International Agencies

Commissioning Circle Director’s Circle Logistics Partner Corporate Patrons

Catherine Petitgas Jo Bloxham (Founding Member) Jonathan Falkingham Amalia Amoedo Ethel Ozen Rodney Miller Erica Roberts

Gallery Circle Patrons

Empty Gallery, Hong Kong kamel mennour, Paris/London Jo and Tom Bloxham MBE Roland and Rosemary Hill Hauser & Wirth, Zurich/ KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin, Louise and Paul Brady Paula Ridley CBE DL London/New York/ London, Seoul Simon Edwards John Shield Somerset/Los Angeles/ Metro Pictures, New York Julie Falkingham Kathleen Soriano Hong Kong/Gstaad Monique Meloche Gallery, Mark Fletcher Peter Woods DL and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/ Chicago David and Maggi Gilkes Francis Ryan Cologne/New York Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris London Hollybush Gardens, London

Festival Partners